Heat and hot water woes affected 80% of NYCHA tenants this winter

NYCHA heating supervisor Anthony Rivera adjusts settings on an oil burner at the Astoria Houses. A staggering 80% of public housing tenants lost heat or hot water this winter. (James Keivom/New York Daily News)

More than 320,000 public housing residents — or a staggering 80% — lost their heat or hot water at some point this winter, the Daily News has learned.

The figures were turned over to the City Council ahead of a hearing delving into the New York City Housing Authority's beleaguered boilers Tuesday.

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Some 323,098 people were without heat over the course of the heating season, Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel told The News. NYCHA is home to about 400,000 residents.

"When you see a number that says 80% of the residents went without heat or hot water — that's damn near everybody," Ampry-Samuel, chair of the public housing committee, said. "That's outrageous."

Ampry-Samuel has a long history with NYCHA — she grew up in public housing, helped tenants as a community organizer and eventually worked for the authority. But still, she said she and others were surprised by the figure — saying she did not believe NYCHA had made clear to the public the extent of the problem.

"There's a problem with almost every freaking unit," she said.

NYCHA maintains a public website with information about which developments are experiencing outages — but often an outage is fixed only for a new one to appear. Ampry-Samuel said even the data the council received "did not come in a total package."

NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye is under fire for the citywide public housing heating issues. (Susan Watts/New York Daily News)

"They jump to react to what's happening," she said. "But if they had the proper systems in place and proper management, they would be able to possibly foresee what's going to happen."

While she was shocked by the number of tenants who'd experienced outages this season, Ampry-Samuel noted winter wasn't over yet.

"How many more weeks do we have left?" she asked.

The hearing — which will be co-chaired by Ampry-Samuel and Councilman Ritchie Torres, who heads a new investigations committee — comes as NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye is under fire for not only the heating woes, but a lead paint scandal that has led to the departure of many of her deputies.

Olatoye is expected to testify — if she can get out of jury duty, to which she must report Tuesday morning and seek a postponement, NYCHA has said. Also on hand to testify will be Executive Vice President for Capital Deborah Goddard and Executive Vice President for Operations Cathy Pennington, among others.

On NY1 Monday night, de Blasio said he was hopeful Olatoye would appear at the hearing.

A NYCHA rep said that the authority is well aware of the heating problems and doing the best it can. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)

"She does have a jury duty obligation. We all honor that. Hopefully she can get an appropriate postponement," he said.

The mayor said he believed Council Speaker Corey Johnson and others in the body wanted the same thing as his administration — increased investment in NYCHA. He cited increases of $2.1 billion in capital funding and $1.6 in expense spending under his administration.

"We're in it for the long haul, trying to help NYCHA get strong. The federal government is not there the way it should be. The state government is not there," de Blasio said. "I think the Council very much wants to be a partner in figuring out how to prioritize the most important things."

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A NYCHA rep said that the authority is well aware of the heating problems and doing the best it can.

"This winter had the worst cold snap in 50 years and it's pushed our aging equipment to the breaking point," NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake said. "While we regret that any resident had to suffer an outage, our team works 24/7 to get equipment back up and running as quickly as possible."